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The Code of Esther: a Counter- Investigation

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The Code of Esther: a Counter- Investigation 129 The Code of Esther: A Counter- Investigation By: EMMANUEL BLOCH Does the Book of Esther contain a hidden prophetic allusion to the Nu- remberg trial? Might the execution of ten Nazi high dignitaries curiously echo the hanging of the ten sons of the villain Haman in Megillat Esther, despite the twenty-four centuries separating these two events? Such has been the claim repeated for many years in some religious circles. To provide a brief overview: at the end of the Book of Esther, the queen makes a surprising request that the sons of Haman be hanged “tomorrow” (9:12); but they had already been killed in previous fights (9:7-10), so why this strange hanging of enemies already dead? The mys- tery thickens with another curiosity of the biblical text: letters of unusual size in the Megillah, three smaller (shin, tav and zayin) and a larger one (vav); what could they mean? All would finally be enlightened by a numerical reading of the unu- sual letters. Small letters refer to the year 707 and the large vav refers to the sixth millennium, thus 5707 since the creation of the world, or 1946 according to the Christian calendar. In other words, the year of the Nu- remberg trial. The parallels between Purim’s account and Nuremberg’s trial seem disturbing: in both cases, the number of executions was the same—ten. In both cases, the mode of execution was the same— hanging. Moreover, the day of execution, October 16, 1946, fell on the day of Hoshanah Rabbah, identified by Jewish tradition as a day of judgment. Lastly, one of the ten Nazis, Julius Streicher, exclaimed as he rose to the scaffold “Purimfest 1946!”1 Strange, right? 1 For more elaborate (and sensationalist) presentations, see the videos accessible at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gzaJZ0bGe0s&t=23s and at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mMhqEiu1p4s; those who prefer writ- ten text may consult https://ohr.edu/holidays/purim/deeper_insights/3440. Many other presentations along the same argument are easily accessible, in all languages, via a Google search. Emmanuel Bloch, an Attorney-at-Law, is pursuing a PhD in Jewish Philosophy at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. He has written peer- reviewed articles on German Neo-Orthodoxy and on the philosophy of halakhah. He is also active on various French Jewish websites. Ḥ akirah 28 © 2020 130 : Hakirah,̣ the Flatbush Journal of Jewish Law and Thought Esther’s mysterious prophecy has recently been revived as a Jewish version of the Da Vinci Code, the worldwide bestseller by novelist Dan Brown. Thus, in 2012, the French book Le Code d’Esther,2 presented as investigative journalism, reproduced the above argument and created a small event in the world of French publishing, with more than 26,000 copies sold in the first few weeks after publication.3 On this side of the Atlantic, in 2014, appeared The Esther Code,4 a thriller in which an FBI agent deciphers Queen Esther’s mysterious prophecy with the help of a brilliant rabbi and finally arrests a serial murderer. The publishing house promised a disturbing investigation, based on a real phenomenon, and of which no skeptic, even the most hardened, could leave indifferent. Unusually sized letters in Megillat Esther, chapter 9, verses 7-10 But is there really anything behind all the buzz? Is the “prophetic” phenomenon real or imaginary? This article examines the code of Esther through the crucible of a critical and detailed analysis, a true counter-investigation in six separate acts. We will examine in succession the archeology of the biblical text, an ancient manner of punishing enemies, a little-known aspect of the anti-Jewish propaganda of the Nazi regime, and more. 2 Bernard Benyamin and Yohan Perez, Le Code d’Esther (Paris, FIRST, 2012). 3 That’s the figure posted in Times of Israel: https://www.timesofisrael.com/french- best-seller-unravels-nazis-cryptic-last-words-about-purim/. 4 Michael Danneman and Sarah Holst, The Esther Code (Married to a Yid, 2014). The Code of Esther: A Counter-Investigation : 131 Act 1: In search of the original text The claim: In the list of names of the sons of Haman (Esther 9: 7-10), three letters have since time immemorial been written in a smaller script: shin, tav and zayin. The reality: Ancient sources make no mention of these three smaller letters. Is it possible to verify whether the forms of certain letters in the Book of Esther differed from the rest in ancient times? Absolutely. Two main routes are open to the investigator: one may study the rabbinical sources that teach how to write the text of the Megil- lah; alternatively, one may examine the ancient manuscripts, which bear witness to the practice of previous generations. We will follow these two paths successively. Rabbinic texts first. Two major sources depict how the Sages pre- scribe the Megillah be written. Let’s first examine the Talmud:5 ואת פרשנדתא וגו' עשרת בני המן אמר רב אדא דמן יפו עשרת בני המן ועשרת צריך לממרינהו בנשימה אחת מאי טעמא כולהו בהדי הדדי נפקו נשמתייהו אמר רבי יוחנן ויו דויזתא צריך למימתחה בזקיפא כמורדיא דלברות מאי טעמא כולהו בחד זקיפא אזדקיפו. The verse says, “And Parshandata ... the ten sons of Haman (Es- ther 9: 6-10).” Rav Adda of Jaffa taught: when reading the Megillah, the names of Haman’s ten sons and the word “ten” must be recited in one breath. Why? Because their souls all departed together. Rab- bi Yoḥanan taught: the vav of the name Vayzata must be elongated as a pole, like the steering oar of a ship. Why? Because they were all hanged on one pole. Thus, the Sages explicitly teach the proper way of writing and read- ing the ninth chapter of Esther: the letter vav must be elongated, and some nouns must be pronounced in a single breath. But anything about small letters? Absolute silence. They are not mentioned, because for the Talmud, these letters are no different from the others: shin, tav and zayin are to be written in a normal size. 5 Bavli Megillah 16b; see also the parallel passage in the Yerushalmi Megillah chapter 3, halakhah 7. 132 : Hakirah,̣ the Flatbush Journal of Jewish Law and Thought A second collection of the Sages’ teachings is important for our re- search: Tractate Soferim, one of the minor tractates of the Talmud. This tractate was written in the eighth century with the purpose of teaching how to write, exactly and precisely, the various books of the Torah. The Book of Esther is discussed in detail, and the particularities already dis- cussed within the Talmud are duly noted.6 But diminutive letters in chap- ter 9? Not a trace. To recap: all authoritative rabbini- cal texts were totally mute regarding any tradition of writing the letters from Megillat Esther in a small size. But how was Megillat Esther writ- ten in practice? We now consider some ancient manuscripts from the Book of Esther, preserved in the collec- tions of prestigious university librar- ies, to examine the scribal traditions of the unfolding generations. The oldest complete manuscript of Tanakh dates from the year 1008 and is considered particularly reliable; it belongs to the National Library of Russia in St. Petersburg (EBP. I B 19a), from which it derives the name by which it is best known: the Lenin- grad Codex.7 Here is a screenshot of the verses in question (Esther 9:7-10) as they appear in the scanned version of the Leningrad Codex available online. Leningrad Codex, screenshot As can be seen, the Leningrad Codex coincides with the ancient rabbinical texts: it contains no small letters in the list of names of Haman’s sons. What about other manuscripts of the Book of Esther? As documented by Mordechai Breuer, the texts of two other ancient manuscripts, Add. 6 Soferim 13:4, and more broadly the whole beginning of chapter 13. 7 The Aleppo Codex (Keter Aram Zovạ ) was several decades old by the time the Leningrad Codex was written. It is said that it is this manuscript that Maimoni- des consulted to verify the Masoretic text before codifying his laws of writing a Sefer Torah. Tragically, some parts of the Aleppo Codex have been lost, including the Book of Esther that interests us. The Code of Esther: A Counter-Investigation : 133 Ms. 5702 and Or. 2375, preserved at respectively Cambridge University and the British Museum, and perceived to be very reliable, are identical to the Leningrad Codex.8 Later manuscripts, too. Thanks to the efforts of the National Li- brary of Israel to digitalize its collections of manuscripts, readers can now inspect this manuscript9 from the thirteenth to fourteenth century and held by the Biblioteca Palatina of Parma in Italy; or the one,10 which dates from 1494, from the collections of the National Library of France; or again, the fourteenth to fifteenth century manuscript Add. Ms 652,11 preserved at Cambridge University. All these manuscripts follow the Talmudic tradition and contain no small letters in the Book of Esther. Our conclusion seems clear as all the clues converge: for about 1,400 years, the Megillat Esther was written with no difference between the size of the letters shin, tav and zayin and the rest of the text. Act 2: The canonization of confusion The claim: The text of the Book of Esther has been transmitted identically, from generation to generation, from its original writing to the present day. The reality: The small letters of The Code of Esther are the result of errors eventually canonized during the transmission process.
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